


The College Experience

by HeartOfTheMirror



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drinking, F/M, M/M, Modern Day, Multi, Paganism, Partying, Peer Pressure, Religious Conflict, badaass Lagertha, christian extremists, jealous Floki, mild to moderate bullying, precious cinnamon roll Athelstan, rowing team Ragnar, the long awaited threesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 06:51:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5324612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartOfTheMirror/pseuds/HeartOfTheMirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athelstan is an innocent freshman, homeschooled by his adoptive parents until University. He's absolutely sure he could make friends and find a way to fit in, if only the hard partying championship rowing team would leave him alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The College Experience

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed but if you notice any mistakes please feel free to let me know.

The raven was stark ink black against the robin’s egg blue sky. Before he’d ever seen a raven Athelstan wondered how people could tell them apart from crows. Looking at one now he knew he’d never mistake the two. It was so much bigger than any crow and so nimble in flight that Athelstan couldn’t bare to take his eyes off it despite the glare of the sun. He felt a cold shiver run through him despite the heat of the day. The glossy feathers looked almost sharp the hungry glint in its eye mocking and opportunistic, reminding Athelstan that he was basically just a pile of meat when it came down to it. 

Athelstan wouldn’t say that he was a superstitious person, but God did speak through symbols and signs, and Athel prayed for the wisdom to know when to listen, how to hear the voice of the Lord.

He felt unsettled, as if the shiver had never left his bones, as if his limbs were made of lead weights and the whole world had turned on it’s side around him. 

“What do you mean, Lord?” Athelstan mumbled at the sky. “I don’t know what you’re saying, please, Lord, speak to me again.” Silence rang in his ears, deafening him. He felt like an ant under a microscope- small, unanswered and too stupid to understand.

A hard knock to his shoulder made him stumble so badly he nearly fell over.

“Watch where you’re going Freshman,” Floki’s voice taunted him. Athelstan looked over his shoulder and saw the group of black clad rowers walking past. He clutched the strap of his messanger bag to his chest and Floki’s eyes sharpened and gleamed at the unconscious gesture. Floki had been known to wrest the bag away from Athelstan when the younger student was distracted and dump its contents over his head. For a second Athelstan feared that Floki would try something but the rower just stuck his tongue out and made an obscene face before turning and sauntering crookedly back over to Rollo and Torstein. 

Athelstan waited a few seconds to make sure they wouldn’t change their minds and double back and do something to him, but the rowing team apparently didn’t feel very friendly at the moment.

Only when they were out of sight completely did Athelstan take the crisp fliers, still radiating library-printer warmth and smelling of fresh ink, from his bag and held them in the sun.

**Christian Student Ministry  
** Meeting this Monday at 4pm!  
Praise Our Lord in Conference Room 6H off Kent Atrium!  
Be There or Be Square lol! 

It was only Athelstan’s second semester of Student Ministry club. They didn’t let him design the fliers. That was Trinity’s job, as she thoroughly explained when he inquired as to whom he could offer suggestions. Still, any small part he could play was relished by Athelstan.

Even in the orphanage he’d always been lonely and withdrawn. Bob and Martha Cuthbert adopted him well after their retirement when their own children were grown. He’d always yearned for a place where he could fit in and it seemed natural that his faith in the Lord should guide him to Student Ministry club.

He was certain he could find a way to work with Trinity to make it less denominational and more tolerant and accepting.

…

“No,” Trinity said, looking like Athelstan had asked her if she ate live snails out of old shoes. “Student Ministry Club was always intended to be a Baptist organization. We became inclusive when we let other Protestants hang too. We’re as inclusive as we need to be and I would really like it if you would like, stop trying to change us okay? Like you just got here. You’re still a freshman. You need to chill.” 

Athelstan looked around to see the other members of Student Ministry nodding seriously along with Trinity. Some looked a little guilty or embarrassed about it but no one raised their voice in support of Athelstan’s notion.

He opened his mouth to respond but was saved from having to find a balance between his hopes and his frustrations when the door was kicked in by a muddy combat boot.

“What did we miss?” Floki asked, grinning like the devil as he sauntered in the room. He took a sloppy swig out of a gatorade bottle but Athelstan could smell the sharp tang of alcohol.

“You see!” Trinity said, waving her hand at Floki and the little group of rowers who had followed him in. “This is why we have _closed_ meetings. Only members of the faith, the _true_ faith, are allowed in this room on Mondays between 4pm and 5,” Trinity informed the rowers, as though they didn’t know. As though they hadn’t crashed Ministry meetings before. 

Athelstan just sighed, watching the rowers go around the room, mocking posters and protest signs the members were working on and selectively erasing words and letters in the daily prayer on the chalkboard to make it as dirty as possible.

“Perhaps if we were more open and tolerant-” Athelstan tried tiredly.

“Get out!” Trinity screamed. “We don’t want you here! I’m going to tell the Dean! I don’t care how many matches or whatever you guys have won you can’t keep doing this.” Floki broke into a round of tipsy gleeful giggles as Trinity screamed at him.

Ragnar stepped between the two before it could escalate to actual violence. 

“We can do,” Ragnar looked around as though considering it, “whatever we want. Today we want to raid your club. Maybe next week we don’t. You’ll have to learn to live with the mystery.” He smiled charmingly at Trinity’s red face.

“How would you like it if the Ministry just decided to go raid Pagan SA huh?” Trinity sneared, crossing her arms and leaning away from Ragnar. Everyone knew the rowers were the driving force behind Pagan SA. Everyone also knew what Pagan SA got up to after hours. Their parties were literal legends in Kattegat. 

Ragnar made a ridiculous face, laughing out loud at the idea of Trinity crashing a Pagan meeting. “Oh, I’d love that,” Ragnar said sincerely. “It’s only a shame none of you spineless weasels have the balls to show yourselves at one of our meetings.”

“It might take two or three of us,” Floki said, leering at Trinity, “but I’m sure we could find a way to dislodge that stick from your-”

“I’ll come,” Athelstan found himself saying.

“What?” Ragnar said, taken aback. He looked at Athelstan for the first time.

“I’ll come to the Pagan SA meeting. I’m not afraid,” Athelstan lied with a surprising amount of ease. “Then when I come back to Ministry I can act as a liaison between the two clubs. We can find some common ground together and coexist peacefully.” He looked between Ragnar’s raised eyebrows and Trinity’s dumbfounded expression, feeling incredibly bare under the weight of the room’s gaze.

Ragnar’s lips were already curling up into a smile when Trinity said, “Sure. You do that Athelstan. Go to Pagan SA and convert the heathens.” She laughed her trilling laugh but Ragnar was already dragging Athelstan out of his seat by his shirt.

“Excellent,” Ragnar said exclusively to his friends. “We’ve never had a hostage before.” Ragnar sounded like this idea had put him in an incredibly cheerful mood. Athelstan whent where Ragnar tugged him and fervently hoped that cheerful was a good thing when his life was in the rowing captain’s hands.

…

The first thing Athelstan said after Ragnar yanked him into the Pagan SA meeting by the collar of his shirt was, “Oh, you have refreshments!” He wasn’t sure why this earned him a round of laughter from the pagans but he ducked his head and smiled sheepishly along. 

He knew he was being ridiculed but he could also feel the warmth of Ragnar’s scarred and calloused knuckles brushing against his collarbone. He couldn't remember the last time he had actually felt someone else's skin against his own, and there Ragnar was toughing him unconsciously as if it didn't matter. Athelstan found suddenly that he was desperately thirsty for even that small contact, that fleeting acceptance.

No one at the Ministry had ever touched him- certainly not skin to skin as Ragnar did so freely, as if he _owned_ Athelstan. None of them had ever watched Athelstan as if he were actually interesting, or enjoyable, or anything other than an embarrassment. 

“They’re for the ceremony,” Ragnar whispers in Athelstan’s ear, close enough that he can feel the bristle of his beard. At that point Athelstan couldn't even remember what had prompted the explanation. He just wanted to hear Ragnar speak against his war again.

“What ceremony?” Athelstan asked, hoping his voice was neutrally interested and desperately praying that Ragnar couldn’t feel the way the Christian’s heart was beating too rapidly, drawing warmth to his cheeks. All the attention, all the touching (from the popular, beautiful, captain of the rowing team no less) was an additive intoxicating thing. Dangerous.

“Ragnar who have you brought into my meeting?” A strong woman’s voice rang from across the room. Lagertha was holding court from what looked to be a throne of animal skins and furs. She was an internationally ranked center for the women’s hockey team and the founder of the martial arts club.

The fear Athelstan held for her was great- but the respect was even greater. She was so beautiful, powerful and confident. It was almost an honor to be in her presence and she seemed fully aware of the fact that she had earned all that and more.

“We took a hostage from the Christians. Isn’t he pretty?” Ragnar asked, stroking Athelstan’s soft curly hair and pinching his cheek as Athelstan tried very hard to let the mortification kill him. 

He caught the caustic look Floki was sending him from the corner of his eye. Some things never changed.

“We should get rid of the little priest in training. Tie him naked to the flagpole and see what the uptight little Christian lemmings think of that,” Floki spat.

“No,” Ragnar said easily. “He said he wanted to spread tolerance. I think first we’ll have to test his.”

“Are you sure the boy is old enough to drink?” Lagertha said, appraising Athelstan with a frankly unimpressed gaze. 

Ragnar just shrugged. “He’s old enough to drink at Pagan SA.”

“You won’t tattle on us, will you priest?” Ragnar teased, drawing Athelstan in close to him and snagging a cup full of mead from a nearby desk. Athelstan took it, staring directly into Ragnar’s eyes. 

“I won’t tell,” he vowed. He sealed his promise with a sip of mead to great praise and uproar from his crowd. Athelstan hid his grimace behind the cup well enough that he thought perhaps only Ragnar saw. Before this he’d only ever had alcohol in the wine he took during communion and the mead was certainly potent stuff. He didn’t think one cup could really do much damage though and it went a long way towards ensuring that he was accepted among these people.

Athelstan took another sip of mead and let himself be dragged around by Ragnar’s hand at his hip as Ragnar snagged himself a drink and Lagertha directed everyone to begin the ritual. Ragnar’s hand fell from Athelstan’s hip, his rough fingertips brushing along the soft vulnerable skin of Athelstan’s wrist on the way to twining their fingers together.

Athelstan glanced around and saw that everyone was likewise joining hands. On his other side a small blond girl smiled at him and took his empty hand in hers. Floki’s persistent glower increased tenfold, his nostrils flaring as if he were two seconds from jumping across the room and beating Athelstan to death with his bare hands.

Athelstan flushed as it occurred to him that Ragnar probably wouldn’t let him, what way Ragnar was playing with Athelstan’s fingers as his cool blue eyes watched Lagertha command the room through the first half of the ritual, and then through a prayer to the Allfather Odin for strength in the upcoming battle against a rival rowing team.

…

Athelstan woke up on a ratty couch in the Rowing House and crawled his way along the uneven wooden floor to the bathroom. He remembered the ritual vaguely, in a blurry sweep of disconnected impressions and malformed memories. 

He’s fairly certain Ragnar fed him something, he remembers the rough pads of Ragnar’s salty fingers brushing against his tongue. Athelstan decides he doesn’t really need to know if it was mushrooms. Or how he got from campus to Frat Row. Or how many times Pagan club has had rituals involving underage drinking and ‘shrooms without the administration or the student association doing a damn thing about it.

He cleaned himself up as best as he could, scraped what was left of his mind together and crept from the house as quietly as he could, wincing as the harsh light of the sun speared him through both eyes and debilitated him right there on the red cup strewn lawn.

The only thing that kept Athelstan going was the knowledge that he would never have to live through anything like that hangover ever again.

…

There was a week of blessed radio silence. Neither Trinity nor the rowing team reached out to him about his little experiment. He honestly thought the whole thing would be forgotten. Maybe he would lay off extracurriculars for the rest of the semester.

But then there was Ragnar, leaning against the threshold of his dorm. He was smirking over his crossed arms, shamelessly looking Athelstan up and down.

Somehow Athelstan wound up under Ragnar’s arm being lead away.

...

Athelstan wasn’t sure why he was at the party honestly. It wasn’t as if he’d really been invited, it was just that no one in the frat had had the balls to turn him away when he’d showed up with his neck locked in the crook of Ragnar Lothbrok’s very intimidating arm. Opening the door to Ragnar’s wide, threatening smile was enough to make even the snobbiest frat asshole think twice about how selective he wanted to be about letting people in.

Ragnar had released him as soon as they were in the door, kissing his cheek in a way that would have been affectionate if it weren’t so discordant with the situation. Maybe in Ragnar’s mind the gesture made perfect sense, but not Athelstan’s, fueled by low-grade panic as it was. Ragnar pushed him away toward the hot press of the dance floor and the intense discoordination of the beer pong table.

“Have some fun for once priest,” Ragnar said with a dirty grin, walking backwards toward the kitchen and the keg. “I certainly intend to.” With that, Ragnar and his friends disappeared into the kitchen, raiding the free liquor and almost certainly causing trouble.

Athelstan could have left. He could have walked out, called a cab and spent his last thirty bucks suffering through an awkward ride in an odd smelling taxi back to campus.  
Even to him that sounded pathetic. He was suddenly overcome by the fierce desire not to let the most interesting thing that happened to him tonight be the fact that Ragnar smug-ass Lothbrok had kidnaped him. Again.

He heard a giggle behind him a second before he felt the press of a soft, warm drunk girl all along his back.

“Sorry,” she giggled, using Athelstan’s shoulder to steady herself as she tripped around to face him. As he took her elbow he couldn’t help but notice her four inch heels- with that to take into consideration Athelstan reevaluated how drunk she might actually be. He would probably be a bit wobbly too if he had to spend the evening in a pair of stilts.

“Hey, I know you,” the girl said. Athelstan took a good look at her for the first time. She was thickset, blonde, and without the heels she would have been a good foot shorter than him.

 

“Patricia?” He asked, remembering how shy she’d been during those first couple of meetings at the campus ministry club. She’d stopped coming altogether after a few weeks.

“Call me Pati,” she said immediately. “My boyfriend is a brother here.” He tried to make his answering smile friendly, but not too friendly or painfully awkward.

“We have an open relationship,” she said, waving her hand as soon as she caught on to his train of thought. “We sleep with whomever but we only date each other,” she clarified, attempting in futility to soothe his sudden alarm. Athelstan may have been sheltered but he was fortunate in that he didn’t blush easily. It was this fortuitous trait that allowed Pati to assume the whole matter had been settled and smile up at him sweetly.

“Let me get you a drink,” she offered graciously. “Then we can dance.”

“Alright,” Athelstan said before he could over think it. He may not have chosen to go to the party but he could damn well choose to enjoy himself while he was there. 

Pati smiled like an angel, her bouncy blond hair framing her pretty face nicely, and Athelstan felt himself relaxing a little. She bent over to grab a brown bottle from the cooler by the living room door and twisted the cap off before handing it over. Athelstan took it and did his best not to wince at the hoppy taste of his first sip. He’d had a sip of beer once at a friend’s house in high school and he’d dumped the rest down the sink as soon as he was left alone. His foster father made mulled wine every Christmas and last year he’d given Athelstan a small glass. So that made this the third time he’d ever had alcohol.

He’d preferred the mulled wine.

Dancing with Pati was incredibly fun though. She was a really enthusiastic partner as long as she didn’t have to take more than a step or two, which Athelstan made sure she didn’t. She was also an amazing hostess. When she disappeared three songs later to have sex with her frat brother boyfriend she made sure to introduce Athelstan to three or four of her closest friends. Apparently he was “adorable” and “safe” and needed to be guided along like a baby duckling, alternatively giggled at condescendingly and grinded up against like a cat post. Despite his bemusement about the whole situation he actually found that he was having an amazing time.

Aside from Pati there were two girls he knew from before the party. One who he’d seen in his sociology class and one who worked in the library. He’d never spoken to either of them before but suddenly he was in on jokes about the droning, vaguely sexist professor and being pressured into downloading YikYak. He had never felt like he was truly having “the college experience” before.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it :)  
> Kudos, comments and concrit welcome!


End file.
